Bertrand Goldberg: More than Marina City

Not long after founding his own firm in 1937, Bertrand Goldberg designed this house in Glencoe for his client Lewis Abrahms. The modern design mixed steel and glass with brick and wood and included a first-floor conservatory for his client's orchid collection.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

Before designing tall buildings like Marina City, Goldberg focused on small residential and commercial projects like this gas station in Chicago. Built in 1938, the gas station at the corner of Clark and Maple streets featured a roof hung from two masts, a design inspired by a Buckminster Fuller project.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

In the late 1980s, Goldberg designed Wilbur Wright College in Portage Park for the City Colleges of Chicago. His design featured four large buildings on a 10-acre site, including the pyramid-shaped Learning Resource Center, which included computer labs, library and faculty offices.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

The River City residential building in the South Loop.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

River City also included this private atrium called "the River Road," which was modeled after European streetscapes.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

Not every Goldberg high rise was curvy. Just before designing Marina City, the architect designed Astor Tower, a 96-unit hotel in the Gold Coast that is now a condominium building.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

Goldberg also ventured into industrial design, including this prefabricated bathroom in the late 1940s. The five-foot long unit included a bathtub, shower, sink and toilet. Goldberg's client, the Standard Fabrication Corp., built about of 2,000 the bathrooms before ceasing operations.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

The North Pole mobile ice cream store, which Goldberg designed in 1938-39, was designed to sell ice cream in Chicago in the summer and in Florida in the winter. Its walls and roof were supported by a mast attached to a truck chassis.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

The Chicago Housing Authority hired Goldberg to design the Raymond Hilliard Homes, which were built in the mid-1960s on Chicago's Near South Side. With 756 units, the complex was listed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1997.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

Completed in 1964, Marina City, with its "corncob" towers, is Goldberg's most famous work. The architect, left, shows a model of Marina City to William McFetridge, center, of the Building Service Employees Union, which financed the construction of the project, and Marina City developer Charles Swibel.

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Courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive and Art Institute of Chicago

Marina City's south tower at night.

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Tom Rossiter, courtesy of Goldberg Family Archive

Goldberg designed Prentice Women's Hospital in Streeterville, which was completed in 1975. Over the objections of preservationists, Northwestern University demolished the building in 2013 to make way for a new medical building on the site.

Bertrand Goldberg is best known for designing Marina
City on the Chicago River. But the Chicago architect designed
everything from gas stations to modular bathrooms during his
60-plus year career. Here are some of his Chicago-area
highlights.

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